Moonlight on Butternut Lake

by Mary McNear

  She was so astonished that she forgot, momentarily, how angry she was. “Brandon,” she said, unlocking the door and cracking it open. He was sitting on the floor of the hallway, his face buried in his hands. She came hesitantly out of the bathroom and knelt down beside him. Then she touched his face. It was wet. He gave another ragged sob and wiped impatiently at his eyes with the back of his hand.

  “Brandon, you’re crying,” she said wonderingly. She’d never seen a man cry before, though admittedly, her experience with men was limited. She’d never known her father. And she’d only dated a few guys in high school and college. Those relationships, though, had been pretty uncomplicated. There hadn’t been any crying in them, hers or theirs.

  “Brandon, why are you crying,” she asked now, feeling an unexpected tug of sympathy for him.

  “I’m crying because I hurt you,” he said miserably. “Why would I hurt you, Mila, when I love you so much?”

  “I don’t know,” Mila said truthfully.

  He looked up at her now, for the first time, and saw her lip. Another sob, low and hoarse, escaped from him. “Jesus, Mila, what have I done to you?”

  “You gave me a fat lip,” she said, her fingers moving to touch it gingerly. “And judging from the feel of it, it’s getting fatter by the minute.”

  He went and got her a bag of ice then and coaxed her back onto the couch in the living room. Then he held the ice carefully against her lip. The pressure hurt, but the cold felt good. And when her lip got a little numb, it took the edge off the pain.

  He talked to her then about everything that was happening in his life. The stress, he said, had been building up for a while. There was his new construction crew boss, who, for some reason, didn’t like Brandon and would always make him do the hardest jobs, and then always complained about how he did them. There was his family, too. He didn’t get along with his parents, especially his dad, who, he explained, was a real hothead who’d thrown him out of the house when Brandon was still practically a teenager. But mostly, he said, the pressure in his life had to do with Mila.

  “With me?” she said when he told her this. “How am I making you feel pressured?”

  “You’re not doing it on purpose,” he said. “It’s just that . . . it’s just that I love you so much, Mila. And I’m afraid you don’t love me the same way. Or, worse”—his brown eyes searched hers—“I’m afraid there’s someone else you love instead of me.”

  “Brandon, there’s no one else,” she said automatically. But she didn’t say anything about loving him the same way he loved her, because she didn’t know if she did. He seemed to love her so intensely. So . . . so crazily, almost. Much later, of course, Mila realized that what Brandon had felt for her wasn’t necessarily love. It was instead a feeling born of a need to possess her, to control her. To own her, really. But in her naïveté, she believed he loved her, though not necessarily in a way she wanted to be loved. She tried to tell him that now.

  “Brandon, I do care about you. Very much. But the way you care about me—”

  “Love you,” he interrupted.

  “The way you love me,” she continued, “it makes me feel uncomfortable sometimes. Like you’re . . . like you’re suffocating me. A little bit, anyway. And I can’t understand why you feel so jealous all the time. Why, when I tell you I’m not attracted to other men, you don’t believe me.”

  “It’s probably because you’re so beautiful,” he said, almost reverently. “And so amazing. What man wouldn’t want you, Mila? And knowing that, I just don’t have any peace of mind, I guess. And I won’t, either. Until I make you mine.”

  “Make me yours?” she echoed, with a slight frown.

  Brandon nodded seriously. “Yes, Mila. I want to marry you.”

  She stared back at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Well, you don’t have to look so shocked,” Brandon said, obviously hurt by her response.

  “Brandon, I am shocked. We’ve never talked about this before.”

  “Well, maybe we should, Mila. I love you. I want us to get married. I want us to spend the rest of our lives together.”

  But Mila could only shake her head. “Brandon, you can’t be serious.”

  “I’m completely serious,” he said. “In fact, I’ve been thinking about it since the night I met you. Will you marry me, Mila? Will you be my wife?”

  “Brandon,” she said softly. “I can’t marry you.”

  “Give me one reason why not.”

  “I’ll give you a hundred.”

  “Okay, then, forget it. Don’t give me a reason why not. Just answer a question for me, Mila. And answer it honestly.”

  She hesitated. “All right.”

  He took the ice pack off her lip and looked into her eyes. “Has anyone ever loved you the way I love you, Mila?”

  “Brandon—”

  “No, seriously. Think about it. Really think about it. And be honest with yourself about it, too. Has anyone ever loved you the way I have?”

  Have they? she wondered. Her mother loved her, she supposed, in her own way. Her own ineffectual way. But when Mila was growing up, she’d made no secret of the fact that mothering Mila was, at best, inconvenient, and, at worse, burdensome. Not surprisingly, they’d never been close, and now that her mother had moved away, they’d drifted even further apart. And then there was Heather. Heather cared about her. Mila knew she did, and when she needed to be reminded of it, she reread Heather’s letters to her. But while Heather was a big part of Mila’s life, she thought now, Mila was a smaller part of Heather’s life. After all, Heather had a husband, and two sons now, with a third son on the way. Add to that her part-time nursing job at a community clinic, and her full-time job working on a family farm, and it was easy to wonder how Heather even had time to think about her, let alone write to her.

  Mila sighed. Her lip was still throbbing, but there was a new pain now, a dull, hollow ache that seemed to reside somewhere deep in her chest. It was loneliness, she knew, and it had been there all her life. Well, most of her life. Except for the times she’d spent in Heather’s office. And except for these last few months with Brandon. Because when things had been good between them, when Brandon was at his best, that ache had receded. That ache had almost disappeared completely. Was that what it meant to be loved? Really loved? Did it make the loneliness go away? Or at least far enough away that you could forget, for a little while at least, that it was even there?

  “Mila, has anyone ever loved you the way I have?” Brandon asked again.

  “No,” she said suddenly. “No, Brandon. They haven’t.”

  “I didn’t think so,” he said, reaching out and stroking her hair. “And, Mila? I promise that what happened tonight will never happen again.”

  “It can’t happen again, Brandon. I mean it. If it does . . .” If it does, it’s over, she almost said, but she didn’t want to spoil the moment.

  “Mila, I swear. It won’t. You have my word on it.”

  “Okay, then.” She tested out a smile on him.

  “Okay, ‘what’?”

  “Okay, let’s get married,” she said, feeling suddenly giddy and lighthearted.

  “Really?” he asked, as if not trusting his luck.

  “Really.”

  “Oh, Mila,” he said, reaching for her. But he didn’t kiss her. He couldn’t. Her lip was still too sensitive. So he held her instead, and Mila held him back and tried, hard, to tamp down all those uncomfortable thoughts she’d had about their relationship when she was locked in the bathroom.

  CHAPTER 10

  The week after her picnic with Reid, Mila was studying her test prep books when she heard a light tap on her bedroom door.

  “Just a second, Lonnie,” she called out, but when she opened the door, she saw that it was Allie.

  “Oh, hi,” Mila said, a little uncertainly.

  “Hi,” Allie said, smiling. “Do you have a minute? Because if you don’t, I can come back another time.”

  “Oh
, no, it’s fine,” Mila said. “Now’s as good a time as any,” she added, opening her door wider and gesturing for Allie to come in.

  “Thanks,” Allie said, and as she walked past, Mila saw that she was carrying a small shopping bag.

  Allie sat down on the chair beside the bed, and Mila perched anxiously on the edge of the bed. She wasn’t used to having visitors in her room, and she was worried too that Reid might have told Walker and Allie about what she’d said to him the morning of his doctor’s appointment. But no sooner had she considered this thought than she dismissed it. In the days since their picnic, there’d been no more conversations between her and Reid, but there’d been no more arguments, either, and the old hostility that Reid had exhibited toward her had been replaced by a new reserve. It wasn’t a perfect working relationship yet—it was still too formal on his side, and too self-conscious on hers—but it was so much better now than it had been before that Mila couldn’t imagine Reid trying to sabotage it.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” she asked Allie, trying to relax. She liked Allie. She’d been as good as her word when she’d told Mila that she or Walker would stop by at least once a day to check on things; often, in fact, they stopped by more than once, sometimes separately and sometimes together. But so far, Mila’s conversations with Allie had taken place in the kitchen and had been limited either to pleasantries or to the occasional progress report on Reid. And since Mila didn’t usually have any progress to report on his behalf, these conversations still tended to be brief.

  “Actually,” Allie said now, “I was hoping there was something that I could do for you.”

  “Me?”

  Allie nodded. “I brought you something,” she said, handing Mila the shopping bag, and when Mila hesitated, she said, “It’s a present. Open it.”

  “It’s a present for me?”

  “Of course for you,” Allie said, amused.

  With some reluctance, Mila reached inside the bag and peeled back the tissue paper inside it. She wasn’t accustomed to getting presents. As a child, she’d only gotten them when her mother felt guilty about leaving her alone for too long. And as an adult, she’d only gotten them when Brandon felt contrite about “losing his temper” with her. She shuddered now, unconsciously, as she extracted an article of clothing from the tissue paper. No wonder she didn’t like presents.

  “Oh, it’s a bathing suit,” she said, holding it up.

  Allie nodded. “I had to guess your size,” she said. “But I have a pretty good eye for that kind of thing. I think it’ll fit you. What do you think?”

  Mila studied it. It was a one-piece, red with white polka dots and a jaunty little ruffle at the neckline. It was cute, she thought. And Allie was right. It did look like it would fit her. There was only one problem with it; she didn’t need it.

  “It’s, it’s really nice,” she told Allie now, not wanting to seem ungracious. “But I don’t know how to swim.”

  “I know,” Allie said. “Reid told me.”

  “He did?” Mila asked, surprised. She wondered why Reid would tell Allie that.

  Allie nodded. “Uh-huh. And he asked me if I could teach you how. For some reason, he remembered that I used to be a swim instructor during my summers off from college. So what do you say? Are you interested in learning?”

  Mila hesitated, not sure how she felt about any of this, particularly the part about actually having to be in the water. What she finally said, though, was, “Allie, you can’t possibly have the time right now to teach me to swim.”

  “Actually, I do,” Allie said. “I just hired someone to work at the gallery two afternoons a week.”

  “But don’t, don’t you want to do something else with that time? Like, take a nap or something?” Mila asked, because as pretty as Allie looked, she looked tired, too. And, really, how could she not be tired when you considered all the things she was responsible for?

  Allie only shook her head though. “Oh, no. I definitely don’t want to take a nap. Do you know what happens when I try to take a nap, Mila? I lie on my bed, and stare up at the ceiling, and make mental lists of all the things I need to do. By the time I give up on the whole idea of falling asleep, I’m a complete wreck. No, I want to do something fun.”

  “And teaching someone how to swim is fun?” Mila asked doubtfully.

  “Well, for me it is. I like doing it, and I’m good at it, too. Or at least I used to be good at it. But I think I probably still am. I’ll let you be the judge of that, though, if you decide to take me up on my offer.”

  But Mila was still unsure. “What about Reid,” she asked. “What will he do while you’re teaching me?”

  Allie shrugged. “Well, he’ll probably do what he always does. Which is, sort of . . . nothing, I guess.”

  Mila frowned a little. Not because it wasn’t true. Most of the time, it was. But she was remembering, for some reason, the way Reid had smiled as he’d skipped rocks over the sun-dappled water of the lake.

  “I’m sorry,” Allie said quickly, misunderstanding Mila’s silence. “That was rude of me to say about Reid. I’m sure he does things to keep busy,” she said, though she looked like she couldn’t for the life of her imagine what those things were. “I guess what I meant, Mila, is that I think Reid can manage without you for an hour. Especially since the swimming lessons were his idea.” Allie paused then. “Unless you don’t want to learn how to swim,” she added. “In which case, that’s fine. Really, no pressure. It’s just . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Just what?”

  “It’s just, it seems like a shame, somehow, to spend the summer on this beautiful lake without being able to swim in it,” Allie said. “And there’s the safety issue, too. I mean, you can avoid this lake this summer, I guess. But what about in the future? What if there was a time you needed to know how to swim, but you couldn’t?”

  “I don’t know,” Mila said honestly. “It’s never been an issue before.”

  “And it probably won’t be. But what if it was?”

  “I guess it could be, one day,” Mila conceded. “But I feel like I should spend my time here working. And as it is, I already spend a big part of every day not working.” She didn’t say that there were days when, between Lonnie’s efficiency and Reid’s reclusiveness, she not only felt as if she should be getting paid less, she felt as if she shouldn’t be getting paid at all.

  But Allie obviously disagreed. “Trust me, Mila. I know Reid. And no matter how little time you’re spending with him, the time you do spend with him qualifies as work. Hard work.”

  “Oh, it’s not that bad,” Mila said. “He’s not that bad.” And she marveled, once again, that since that day they’d spent together, she’d been feeling . . . feeling differently about Reid. Differently in a way she couldn’t explain.

  Allie only smiled, though, and tucked a strand of her honey brown hair behind an ear. “Well, of course he’s not that bad,” she agreed. “Walker and I know that. We just didn’t know if you knew it yet. So what do you say? To the swimming lessons, I mean?”

  “All right,” Mila said, smiling back at her. “But I can’t promise I’ll be a fast learner,” she warned.

  “That’s okay,” Allie said, standing up. “The summer isn’t even half over yet. So, right here, down at the dock, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from two o’clock to three o’clock, all right?”

  “I’ll be here,” Mila said, smiling, and feeling a little pulse of excitement. She was afraid of deep water, that was true, but they wouldn’t start out in deep water, would they? Besides, even a nonswimmer like her could appreciate how temptingly cool and refreshing Butternut Lake looked on a warm, sunny day.

  “Good,” Allie said now. “I’ll speak to Lonnie, too. I’m hoping to coordinate Brooke’s nap with the lessons, but Lonnie will still need to watch her here.”

  “Lonnie will love that,” Mila said, knowing how much Lonnie was looking forward to being a grandmother one day.

  “I’ll see you Tu
esday, then,” Allie said, standing up.

  “Thanks for the bathing suit, Allie,” Mila said, feeling suddenly shy again as she walked her to her bedroom door. “It’s really pretty.”

  “You’re welcome,” Allie said, and she was leaving when she stopped and turned around. “By the way, Mila, that red will look great with your coloring,” she said, and then she was gone. And Mila took the bathing suit over to the mirror above the dresser and held it up to herself, studying it thoughtfully. Allie was right, she realized with surprise. It did look good with her coloring. And she remembered now how badly she’d wanted a bathing suit as a child. Funny, though, she hadn’t known how badly she’d still wanted one. Until now.

  One minute, Reid was lying in his bed, willing himself to stay awake, and the next he was back in his car, after the accident, and night was coming on, and coming on fast. I have to get help, he thought, as he fought to keep the panic at bay. I won’t survive another night like this. But he didn’t know if he could trust his voice to call for help; the last time he’d done it he’d sounded like a croaking frog. He tried to swallow, but there was no saliva left in his mouth and his throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. The thirst, in some ways, was worse than the pain. It consumed him in a way the pain did not, especially since he could hear a stream running nearby, and he could imagine its clear water gathering in drinkable pools.

  But now he pushed the thought of water out of his mind. He needed to stay focused. He took a deep breath—as deep a breath as he could, given that the steering wheel was digging into his chest and several of his ribs, he knew, were broken—and then he called out, “Help me, please. Somebody help me!” Christ, his voice was barely audible, even to him. He tried again, louder this time, as loud as he possibly could. “Help me,” he screamed, and still the words sounded no louder than a whisper. He couldn’t give up, though. Not now. Not when he still had a little fight left in him. So he kept calling, over and over again, for what felt like an eternity, “Help me, help me. Please, help me!”